


Twelve Years of Christmas

by Pie (potteresque_ire)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Amnesia, Angst, Christmas, Community: hd_holidays, M/M, Minor Character Death, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-24
Updated: 2011-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-05 22:50:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/411895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potteresque_ire/pseuds/Pie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every Christmas, Potter visits as Draco waits for Scorpius to come home for the winter holidays. Every Christmas, he brings presents based on <i>Faith of the Law</i>, a French interpretation of the carol in which a true love receives twelve gifts, one for each day. Not that Draco remembers, but Christmas marks the anniversary when their destinies become one—a spiral of ashes and a void that only they can fill for one another…</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The 1st Year

**Author's Note:**

> Written for moonlitdark for 2011 HD_Holidays, who requested a story that would make her cry. _La Foi de La Loi_ , the French version of the Christmas carol _Twelve Days of Christmas_ , and the twelve gifts listed in the song are referenced from Wikipedia.

  


#### LA PREMIÈRE ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (1 st Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Good Stuffing without Bones ~_

  


  


The oven blazes, its kindling match fizzles when he shows up—the same hideous spectacles, the same mud-stained jeans, the same ill-fitted robe. 

The same scar. Potter isn’t Potter without one. 

He has, in his arms, poinsettias. Red petals like starburst set fire to his face behind them. They clash with my décor.

“Happy Christmas,” he says, and sets the plant on the table set for a feast for two, saviours excluded. 

He looks at me, expecting a thrown back greeting. I give him none. I come up with nothing under the shadow of that gaunt visage—lifeless now that it’s lost the flowers for blush—that goes with “happy”. 

I return to tending my dinner.

“What's that?” He approaches, the answer to his question in plain sight. Years with Granger hasn’t rubbed much brains in him. True, the windowsill is no place for cookery, but it’ll do for now. And a Muggle oven is hardly a staple of my home, but that’s when having a flat for a manor has its conveniences. The lobby, accessible for a Galleon’s gratuity whenever Eliot the servant is present, is a treasure trove for all things scorned upon by any self-regarding Malfoy.

Like Muggle things. Cheap things, or things that instigate labor. Like things that, as decreed by a plaque on my door:

 _May inflict danger to self or others_.

The servants have come to ask similar questions: _What is this object?_ _What do people do with this object?_ _What time is it and in what month falls Christmas Day, Mr Malfoy?_ As if I can’t see the quills floating behind them, ready to forge my words into daggers to be thrown against me some day.

Potter is better than them. Marginally.

Plus, I’m in a good mood. Christmas is a time of cheer, is it not? Scorpius must be on the Hogwarts Express now, watching the snow-laden trees fly by as he races home.

“Stuffing without bones,” I reply Potter, as I drop one small bone after another around the burning braid. I’ve saved them from the last month’s meals, cleaned them and stored them until tonight.

Potter squints into the fire. Either the lone flame is too bright or smoke has got into his eyes—red spider webs have radiated from the green irises. His throat moves and his brows draw to a light frown. 

I’ve lost him.

Of course. An imbecile like Potter, who doesn’t have one morsel of _bourgeois_ inside him, cannot know of Scorpius’ favorite take on a Yule Song.

Potter’s in luck. He always is. With cheer comes charity, and with charity I explain: _La Foi de La Loi_. The Faith of the Law. A song in which a man offers his love twelve gifts for the holidays, except it’s in French and features none of the ridiculousness such as “Lords-a-leaping”. I can assure anyone that no Lord, Dark, Light or In Between, would ever find himself performing such … exercises. 

The knot on Potter’s forehead loosens and he flashes a small smile. “I’ll take your word for that,” he says.

With the French being ever in love with their cuisine, the hero of _La Foi_ offers food for the first eight gifts. 

Imagine how thrilled Scorpius will be when he finds out his father has prepared a Christmas feast based on his favorite song. Eight courses are a bit much, so I reckon I’ll simply prepare the first day’s gift, for Scorpius’ first year of Christmas as a Hogwarts student. 

And it’ll serve as incentive for my son to return home in the coming years, won’t it? Twelve, to be exact, before he grows into a man, strong and carefree and ready to take on... Merlin knows what life will put on his shoulder. _Repopulate Britain_ , possibly. I can't help but smile. If his owls were to go by, the child is enjoying school far too much.

Such as that time, when he…

Potter stays mum I tell him of the tales Scorpius has shared with me: his adventures around the castle, his new friends-minions, his stellar marks. His saving a classmate from a broom accident. His induction into the dueling club, if at the cost of scrubbing the trophy room for a week. 

Bet the Potter spawns are living in half the excitement. 

I’ve just begun a story of Scorpius in the greenhouse—a story that’ll surely pique Potter’s interest with his younger son’s cameo—when Potter interrupts.

“The bones…?” he croaks, a half-question. 

Bones. How can I forget them? I dip my fork into the oven and roll the bones over. No, not nearly done. The hard shell will crack first, then the marrow will melt. Then every cell will turn into smoke, smoke that rises until it soils the heavens. “They won’t stay.” I stir the oil pooling under the flame, try to recall since when it is tainted red. Why red seems to be inescapable: the poinsettias on the white table, the web in Potter’s eyes…. 

Like blood seeping into snow.

Potter’s eyes can’t seem to tear away from the oven, likes moths enamoured with the streetlamp. He still doesn't follow what I mean, does he?

So I extract two bones, one big and one small, and hold them on my palm. They’re scalding but I’m desperate, somehow, to make my gift understood. “Burn the bones, Potter. Burn until I can’t tell they’re there.” The oil freezes, forming a thick, red cloak around the shafts. “Until Scorpius can’t separate the remains, the ashes...” 

That unearths Potter’s legendary temper, a loon in its own right. 

“Your oven’s a fucking candle, Malfoy,” he hisses, his voice cracked.

The door slams shut. He vanishes, as abruptly as he appeared. The Christmas tree in the hallway sways back and forth. 

I throw the bones back into the fire, glad, for once, that my order of fairy lights and ornaments never came.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. The 2nd Year

  


#### LA DEUXIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (2 nd Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Two Breasts of Veal ~_

  


  


I refuse to touch the roast beef sandwiches Potter brought in. Beef must wait. the second gift, for Scorpius’ second Christmas break from Hogwarts, is veal.

Breast of veal, stuffing for heart.

“It’s cow,” Potter says, his words muffled with food. He’s looking stronger, if even less kempt, behind the poinsettias on the table.

This time, the petals are white. White—I look around—like my furniture, my walls. How have I never noticed before, that my home a winter wasteland? But renovations must wait. Christmas is upon us, suddenly as always, when it seems like I’d just let go of the last one mere hours ago, that I’d I just said goodbye…

“My son will taste the difference between beef and veal in a single bite.”

Ah, my Scorpius, so much like me, yet so different. So alive. Such a daredevil with taste and manners, eager to challenge, eager to surprise. He's challenged me to answer what life would be like without betrayals, what vengeance is other than insanity. 

As for surprise, let’s hope he’s not missing his school train. 

He’ll be home. He enjoyed my gift last year, did he not? My memories of the evening are hazy. I blame the fine elderberry wine and finer Firewhiskey.

Potter isn’t arguing. He eats slowly, another new habit, even though he’s chewing the same way, pushing food around his plate the same way, as if his lack of appetite is unspeakable. Unspeakable, too, is the ailing luster in his eyes, bright only when he thinks I’m looking. I know him, as little as I want to admit. I watched him wolf down his breakfast in the Great Hall for six years. I was in such close proximity of those eyes, when his fist, still with a Snitch imprisoned, struck against my face... 

He throws glances at me every now and then, and with every glance, I find myself on his glasses. 

It can’t be me. It’s a caricature, a wild-eyed lunatic who fools with my looks.

“The train’s running late.” Potter speaks again. He puts down his half-eaten sandwich and wipes his mouth with a crumpled ball of tissue. 

Napkins. I search the table, then realize how unnecessary it is with the limited space to look. They’re supposed to be there, gathered together by silver rings with the Malfoy insignia, bowing to a centerpiece of holly wreaths laden with winter berries and sprinkled with crushed rubies and diamond dust. Portraits of my ancestors should be watching over us, the echoes of peacock cries from afar mocking the merry nonsense we spew…

I’ve misplaced them. The precious stones, the histories and _life_ all yanked away from me like the lush purple carpet under my feet. I turn around, questioning my eyes, my heartbeat like the fluttering wings of a Snidget lost in winter, my breaths a speeding train …

Hands close against mine, like oyster shell against a pearl. Their owner locks me in space and time with a stare, as they have always done. “I’m here, Malfoy.” Potter's fingers lace against mine. “Here. Look at me.”

I look. As I do, the white flowers between us blossom, glowing as though they’re bejeweled. The paper wrapping is, as I watch closer, a transfigured vine of holly leaves, struggling to squirm itself free under the sandwiches. As for the napkins… 

I’ve sent them to the servants for a deep Scourgify this morning, have I not? They’ll be back soon, in time for the feast. No sane person, after all, would offer them to a walking mess like Potter, he who hoards crumpled tissues in his jean pockets. 

“Doesn’t hurt to snack a little,” Potter says softly. He picks up a sandwich and offers it to me. “It’s still early.”

The holly leaves let out a crisp cheer as they wind into a wreath. The candles must be lit around the manor, the fragrant ones. A faint scent of tobacco drifts into my nose. 

“How do you know about the late train?” 

“Auror and all that,” Potter replies, a weary twitch on his lips. 

I take the sandwich. He smiles.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. The 3rd Year

  


#### LA TROISIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (3 rd Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Three Joints of Beef ~_

  
  


Potter and his poinsettias are here again, as well as the roast beef sandwiches. 

Also, memories of Firewhiskey. Strong ones.

He says nothing, stumbles across the room and collapses into my chaise longue by the window. The sleet outside has tamed the furious shine of his leather shoes but cannot subdue the spirit of his name card, clinging on still by a tether of magic to the cuff of his robe.

 _2020 Yule Ball_ , the stroke of quill has written in a silver flourish. Scarlet ribbons on the emblem _M_ blossom into poinsettias. _Guest of Honour: Harry J. Potter, Head Auror, Order of Merlin 1st Class_. 

The Guest of Honour only recalls his honour then. He pats his sleeve, jerks the card free and for a long moment, reads over the words. 

Then he decides it needs a speech. 

“Thanks for coming,” he slurs, holding the card close enough to touch his nose, “last three years are difficult, but…But!” he exclaims after a string of incoherent murmurs. “They only make me stronger, more ready to defend Wizarding Brits against…” He slumps back into the chair and hurls the card across the room. “Against whatever.” 

He turns to me then and flashes a crooked grin. “Against any bloody whatever you can come up with, Malfoy.”

“Oaf,” I say, contemplating if I should throw him out before Scorpius returns.

Maybe not. May this be the lesson for this Christmas: our hero is a loon.

“Oaf. All right,” mumbles Potter. “Oaf. I’ll defend that.” He shakes his head. “Against that.” He moves then, like a flobberworm until he’s topsy-turvy, lying on the short side of the chaise. His surprisingly long and muscular legs stretch against the wall. 

Anyone else in this pose would have been seduction. But this is Potter—he who’s sprawled on the wrinkled heap of his own dress robe, who’s carelessly yanked open his collar to expose the slender arch of his neck. His throat. 

I would have touched and tasted it, searched the pulse with my tongue. 

But this is Potter.

So, instead, I envision my slitting it, right under that Adam’s apple. Like the joints of beef I’ll carve tonight. 

He’ll thank me. 

Just look at him.

 _You’ll thank yourself_ , a whisper suggests meekly. Not Potter’s. More like the little boy I used to hold, always afraid to speak his mind, yet always tell the truth, ugly as it is. The little boy who’s so much like me, yet so different. _You won’t stay if he goes._

True. Scorpius will be heartbroken if I leave without a word. Malfoys have better manners than that.

I pick off a sandwich on the table, unwrap it and take a bite.

~*~

“My speech…of bull-shit. Done.” Potter grins lazily, still watching me upside down as I fold up the paper wrapping. His face, flush with blood, is livelier than ever. “You’ve got stories for me tonight, Malfoy?” 

Too bad his alcohol-addled mind is spewing nonsense.

“Owls from Scorpius. Neville’s class. You started… two years ago,” he supplies, summoning a tiny roll of parchment from his trouser pocket. One end soon dangles from his lips and the other end, flares with a wandless spell. 

Worse, his alcohol-addled mind remains a master of magic.

His cheeks hollow. as he exhales, out comes smoke with the piquant scent of tobacco—so much that it clouds my recollection of the tale he’s referring to. 

But I have a lifetime’s worth of tales to tell. One after the other, like the parchment rolls between his lips.

Cigarettes, he tells me. They kill. Do I want one?

“Later,” I reply. 

Until I have no more stories left in me. 

Smoke rises and ashes fall. I tell him, the shards of Scorpius’ magnificent life, a glimmer of Albus, even James Potter, dotted here and there. He smiles at every mention of their names. 

The cigarette fell from between Potter’s fingers as his eyes close for the last time in the night. I catch it, smothering the ember at its tip the same moment.

~*~

I wake up on the chair by the dining table, a blanket tucked tightly around me. “Sorry I slept on your bed,” says the note scrawled on the wrapping of a leftover sandwich. 

Only the lingering smoke remains my company as I wait for Christmas, once more.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	4. The 4th Year

  


#### LA QUATRIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (4 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Four Pig's Trotters ~_

  
  


Potter has a minor collision with the Christmas tree again, as he did the first year, on his way in. A white poinsettia petal drifts in the air, then loses itself against the floor.

I’ve forgotten about the renovations.

He’s early. it’s still bright outside. He straightens the tree with a quick spell and … an oversized grey leaf finds itself back on a branch. 

Potter bends reality to suit his ways. I’ve always suspected that.

He looks ill at ease. His jacket, it’s got to be. Only Muggles would design leather gear with an exposed neck. My eyes take in that familiar, slender line, the bobbling Adam’s apple. My mind drifts, like that petal a moment ago, and gets lost in the dark, in the old as war wish of kissing, slitting…

“Sorry about your coat.” 

I raise my eyebrows at him. 

“Cloak rack,” he explains with a wave of hand.

“Christmas tree, Potter.”

He responds, “Right,” after a long pause. “I was thinking—” he runs his hand through his wild black locks. “—maybe we can eat out.”

I try to recall the last time I was out there. There was flurries, flying, trying their damn best to not fall for… the sea of flowers beneath them. Flowers that are white like snow, like heaven. 

Like here. There’s nothing for me outside.

“No.” I shake my head. “I’m starting dinner preparations. Trotters take time.”

“Have you bought them? The seasonings and…” 

“Of course.”

“Show me.”

“They’re—” I frown, searching my memory “—with the servants.” 

“Maybe we can go to the market. I need help picking good…” Persistence and persuasion skills need not equate. He stumbles, then resorts to gesturing two walking legs with his fingers. “For dinner at my place, you know.” He grins at me, a faint flush creeping up his neck.

The trotters, he means. Oh, Potter, ever an imbecile.

I smirk and catch the gray cloak he’s thrown at me, not realizing until much later that he’s never mentioned his family’s holiday celebrations before. 

Why is he here? Why is he with me?

~*~

Looks of horror and mutters of “Mr Potter, you can’t take him…” dash past us until _Mr Potter_ shouts “I’ll take responsibility, all right?” and grabs my hand and races us through the hallways. 

We catch our breath outside a shop window, under the curious gaze of a wretched, ridiculously-dressed mannequin. Potter’s neck is blotch red as his grin stretches from ear to ear.

“That’s the _Prophet_ ’s headline tomorrow.”

Fame whore, I call him. He laughs, and says we’ll make their Christmas headline anyway, as we did for the past four years. At least this is fun.

This is insane, I counter. 

He turns to face me. His mouth tightens just in time to keep mum.

I nod at the mannequin still staring from above. It’s proof enough, I say. Even _she_ thinks he’s insane. Plus, I add, _Mr Potter_ makes news. I have no business in the limelight, no more patience for the Skeeters and the cameras, the Aurors…

Potter takes a breath, his hand somehow having found mine again and squeezes. He turns around, his voice just strong enough to be heard. “There’s no you versus I anymore. Not around Christmas.” He leads our way down the street, lets the chill sever his thoughts and the wind carry the words away. “Today, you and I make one big, crazy mess.” He swings our clasped hands high into the air, like we’re childhood best mates, and speaks towards them with a smile. “Like the bones in your stuffing, Malfoy.”

~*~

He didn’t Apparate us to Hogsmeade, to the market. 

“It’s not open yet,” he says, even though the winter sun is high above our heads. “Maybe we can walk a bit, get some fresh air.”

I don’t know where we’re going. A green little man is our guide, a flashing beacon across the streets as we zigzag past last minute Muggle shoppers and their unshrinkable bags. London is at the height of anticipation and festivity. The display windows are decked with ornaments and lights. Mistletoe grows under the arches of stone buildings. The smell of cinnamon and roast chestnuts fill the air. 

We stop at a grand crossing, like two rocks against a torrent of men. There, Potter lets go of me and pulls out a cigarette. He is deep in the habit, his two fingers stained sallow where they clip the roll. He throws it between his lips and, shielding it for an instant with his hand, lights it with yet another wandless spell.

Here, at a Circus—I saw the name on an Underground sign—I finally find the place where Potter isn’t watched like he belongs to one. The smoke mixes with the steam from the cold air and the great Harry Potter is lost in it.

So am I, at the sight of it rising, rising, free of the tethers in this world.

He and I should go flying, I say. 

Potter laughs. “Yeah, Seeker’s death match.” He tilts his head and with a lopsided grin, blows out a perfect ring of smoke, like a Quidditch hoop.

The red bus screeching to a halt in front of us tears it apart.

“Shirt lifters!” A dimwit in a hooded sweater alights the bus and shouts at us. He steps aside as his friends join him, leering, when—

—Potter drops his smoke on the ground, pulls me against him…

And there, in front of what must be half of London’s dwellers, he kisses me.

~*~

Potter kisses like he is: all pigheaded passion and no grace. His glasses are askew, his fingers catches my hair, but not for once does his ardor wander from my lips. Every breath I’m spared is the lingering tobacco fumes in his mouth. Every heartbeat, the seconds when his arms ease their hold on me, his hands seeking new places to incarcerate me by: be it the nook of my neck, my back down to my waist, and my … 

And there is little strength left in me to try to break free. 

If the dimwit hurled more insults, the applauses and catcalls would have drowned them out. Satisfied, Potter releases me, gently for once, and grins at the crowd.

The attention pleases him. Surprising, as much as I’ve claimed it to be true. 

Maybe it’s the smiles, the well-wishes. They form a mismatched background behind the usual him.

~*~

The watchers have moved on, but for an old lady approaching us, her hair iridescent silver like her box hat and pearls. Only she can afford the time, time she no doubt measures well with her hunched back and walking stick. 

“What’s the occasion?” she asks.

Potter doesn’t miss a beat. He clutches my hand. “He said ‘yes’.”

“Oh!” The lady beams. “That’s beyond wonderful.” She pulls out a box from her shopping bag and offers it to me. “Here, my dears. Congratulations!”

 _Chocolates with champagne filling_ , it says in gold. _For every joyous occasion_.

I hesitate. The lady squints, first at my face, then the giant grey leaf wrapped against my robe...

“Thank you.” Potter takes the sweets. Light fades away from his eyes as he reads the lettering, but his smile remains, wide and easy, as he straightens and gestures at me. “We’re doing a small play for the kids. He’s going to be a shepherd.”

The lady visibly relaxes. “What about you?” she asks Potter, chuckling. “You’re not dressed!”

Indeed, who dons leather in a manger?

“I’ll be a sheep,” Potter replies, after a pause the length of a heartbeat, and offers me a shy glance. “His sheep.”

~*~

He watches her go, taking a seat on the railing for a better view. I didn't catch a soft _Obliviate_.

“Thanks for playing along,” he whispers when she disappears into the crowd, and turns to me. “Now we’ve shared one _joyous occasion_ together.” He raps a light _pa-rum-pa-pum-pum_ on the box on his lap.

I must have said numerous “yes”es in my life, so indeed, I said 'yes'. He got me.

Potter says nothing. He tears open the box and counts the tiny bottles of champagne-shaped pieces inside. 

There are twelve of them. _One for each year_ , he whispers.

Another bus is ready to leave the stop. 

“I’m hungry.” Just above the roar the engine, he, without asking so much as an “are you” and waiting for a proper “yes”, hops off the railing, grabs my hand and hustles me to the end of the road, where a restaurant awaits.

It just happens to serve pig trotters, the best ones I’ve ever had.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	5. The 5th Year

  


####  LA CINQIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (5 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Five Legs of Mutton ~_

  


  


That trip into Muggle London brought home some hexes that I cannot Finite. My preparations for the holidays have fallen into a habit of… disguising themselves. Take the Christmas tree: one minute it is what it is, then I turn and it becomes something else. A cloak rack, for example. Even my home is in on the charade. I can no longer tell apart my chaise longue and my bed.

Distressed, I’ve longed for Potter’s next visit, to the extent that the feasts for Scorpius are sometimes forgotten.

Potter must have a hand in it. For, in addition to poinsettias and food, he has brought a Christmas tree in his pocket.

The pine needles pokes through the sleeves of his Auror robe as he unshrinks it. He laughs, like a child who, for once, gets away with the rules.

Then I remember this is Potter. He _always_ gets away with the rules.

He’s also brought ornaments: colonies of sparkling fairies, crystal spheres that switch hues and patterns on a whim, ribbons that tango into their own crossbows, wooden soldiers that burst into silly songs whenever I touch their berets. 

An angel watches us from the tree top, a little boy with silver hair and blue eyes.

“Want to set it up by hand? Or…?” Potter gives his wand a flourish. His wedding ring is missing, a band of paleness against sun-tanned skin.

“It’s been five years, Malfoy,” he only says, and feeds his palmful of scarlet fairies with coral pellets.

~*~

The tree glistens under a ceiling of candles, strewn together by ivy and with bouquets of mistletoe. Christmas is the season of change. Even the table and chairs gleam in their lustrous dark wood, their lavishly woven covers exuding charm in emerald and purple, once the palette of my home in Wiltshire. 

“Better.” Potter smiles a smug smile, his hands on his waist. 

It isn’t sandwiches that he’s brought in this time. On the self-warming tray is a leg of lamb, braised with garlic and rosemary. 

“Al loved the lamb at Hogwarts,” Potter begins, as he _Accio_ s a candle from the ceiling to stand between our seats. He shoots me a quick glance, before his wand drives an invisible blade into the meat. “I asked the elves for the recipe. They said Scorpius liked it too. He used to hang out with them...”

The grandfather clock in the corner of the room strikes deathly loud, ticking off time with a precision cold and sharp as the icicles outside. 

One second, one minute, one hour, one day.

Times flies, and here I am, idling, wasting life on the lies about my son …

I shoot up from my seat. “Out!” 

Potter freezes. But his magic trickles on, seeps into every crevice the hour and minute hands crack into my world. The cut into the lamb deepens.

The sight of it sends me to an outrage.

“Out!” I point at the door.

“Malfoy…” He doesn’t look startled. As if he’s expected me to lose it. 

Lose everything.

Or he is my lamb, as he once said. My lamb to be slaughtered.

So I throw myself at him. I knock him down, push him against the carpet and punch his chest. 

Just like he did to me years ago. He, like I then, doesn’t fight back. 

I lock his arms above his head. The backs of his forearms are pale, like he’d stolen them from me, left me with Marked ones. I spew venom at the skin, bite onto the same lips that stank of tobacco poison exactly one Christmas ago. I chafe where he would hurt the most, force his legs apart and jam my knee in between. He fights back, finally, yanks his arms free and shoves them between he and I…

Still, he says nothing, not even when my grip tightens around his throat, the timepiece behind us counting seconds to my victory. Thoughts, wild and heavy, whirl like a snowstorm. My parents. Eating Death. Greeting Death. Potter. Fighting me in the pitch, fighting for me in court. 

And then there’s Scorpius. 

My Scorpius, his tiny arms clinging tight around my neck as he rides my shoulders, crying, terrified of the height from which his mother wants him to see the world. He's a little boy then, his face half-covered with Honeydukes’ chocolates and half behind book after book. Soon he’s eleven, pale and quiet as he stands on the platform, watching all the strangers …

Then there’s no more. 

The little boy comes back to me, tugs at a tentacle of my tangled thoughts as he’d tug on my sleeve. His Hogwarts uniform is still sizes too big and cradled in his hands is a small mug of butterbeer, a gift from the kitchen. He peeks around, making sure nobody is there who’ll see him, taunt him for his family name, his affinity to books…

 _Mr Potter is waiting too_ , he whispers, glancing down at the throat in my grip. _He’ll keep you company. Albus and James were really nice to me that day._ He smiles shyly, then breaks into a awkward run backwards. 

_Sorry but I can’t stay. It’s curfew._

Behind him, a void draws in the train of his robe. It pulls, shears his image apart like smoke. He gets sucked in, giving in to the black tunnel through which nightmares run, and swirls and dissipates into the Darkness.

~*~

I let go.

Potter coughs and gasps for breath. As his limbs sprawl, I catch a glimpse of his underwear under his unbuttoned, unzipped jeans, damp at a patch. 

I look above us. Mistletoe. 

“I thought you’d kill me,” he says—

—sounding, dare I say, disappointed.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	6. The 6th Year

  


####  LA SIXIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (6 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Six Partridges with Cabbage ~_

  


  


I told them, a week before Christmas, that I would like to buy a pheasant and vegetables and yes, I would like to reserve time to use the common kitchen. 

In return, I subjected myself to a plethora of _who_ , _when_ , and _where_ questions, several rounds of prodding and poking, a scant “Congratulations, Mr Malfoy, you’re re-classified as Grade II”, before I found the food outside my door, marked with an unsightly print of TESCO.

The pheasant comes in slices. A white fork hangs from the bag by a crumpled piece of spellotape.

Reserving time is unnecessary. Few of my neighbours loiter by, one of which has a frozen smile and reminds me of a former teacher at Hogwarts. He isn’t keen to go near a former Death Eater brewing things, never mind it’s just tea.

~*~

Potter approaches. 

They let him pass sans exchange, their back flat like pancakes against the wall. There isn’t revere in their eyes. Just fear. 

They’ve looked at me the same way.

He isn’t surprised to find me in the kitchen. He bears the perennial gifts of poinsettias and sandwiches (“Chicken with lettuce and tomato.” He shrugs. “Close enough, right?”) and grins as we step into my flat. “I know you’d keep the decorations going,” he says, between spells that refuel the floating candles, trim the mistletoes, and rouse the crystal spheres into wild kaleidoscopes. The fairies on the Christmas tree flock to him when he pulls out a bag of fairy treats, a vivid, quivering halo above his head as he sorts, pellet by pellet, to the hue of their lights. The soldiers burst into silly songs without touch as he soaks them in a miniature barrel of Ogden’s, perfect sized to be their communal bath.

He’s Potter. Irksomely likeable even to fairies. He is nothing to fear. 

But I’m nothing to be afraid of, either. 

Ain’t I?

So I ask when he’d turned into a Boggart. Isn’t he the Chosen One, their Saint and Savior rolled into one? The partridge on the chalice?

Potter shrugs. “That’s history,” he says, his lopsided grin in place. He invades my space, his legs crossed with mine as I half sit on the narrow windowsill. 

It is sunset. In the fading gold, I suddenly see the mob of wounds on his face, some still caked with dried blood. The bruise in its socket makes his right eye brighter than the left.

He rubs his fingers on the One Scar I know him by. “I did a raid last week in Ireland. You should have seen it.” He produces a box from his jeans and with a light _tap, tap, tap_ , a cigarette lands on his palm. 

It isn’t an offer this time, but I take it from him.

“Child trafficking ring.” He gestures towards the darkness descending beyond us. “So much light shooting into the sky like darts, that Muggles reported fireworks. And you know what? The light is mostly green. My job, my AKs.”

The cigarette flares in my hand. 

“Auror rulebook says, _No Unforgivables_. I’m playing with fire, I know. One mistake, one bastard goes to hell.” He holds my hands, guides the cigarette to his mouth that opens but does not receive. Instead, he closes his eyes and nips on my skin, the burning cigarette standing precariously between our clasped fingers. “No way that should happen, right? My job is to catch them, smile for photo calls, pep talk in parties.” The nips turn into sucks as he leans further against me. “Not handing out justice.”

I will catch fire soon. Or he will. Or both. 

“I’m off my rocker, Malfoy. Bloody off it. I should be here, and not only on Christmas. But you know what my boss said?” His eyes open and they search mine, from the dark hole one sits in. “ _Just hop back on your rocker before the press, Auror Potter. Look normal, so we can keep the crooks you’ve lined up for trial. We have no more case if their captor’s gone nutters_.”

His hand falls away from mine. Down falls the cigarette, still burning. I reach out and stop its fall, again.

“So I… do that. Rocker hopscotch. Keep my job, chase more crooks …. ” He rubs his face with a chuckle. “Rock my normal look.”

I assure him he’s _rocking it_. 

The same hideous spectacles, the same mud-stained jeans, the same ill-fitted robe. 

The same scar. Potter isn’t Potter without one.

“Many scars,” he says, rubbing his face again. “You blind, non-speccy git.”

But I don’t see them. I only see the One that strikes like lightning, under the dark, wild mess on his head. 

Sure as Christmas, I say, as the remains of the cigarette burns into my flesh.

Sure as my son will come home one day.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	7. The 7th Year

  


####  LA SEPTIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (7 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Seven Spitted Rabbits ~_

  
  


Potter stumbles into my flat early morning, reeking of cigarettes, alcohol and sex. 

“I missed the Ministry party,” he slurs, thrusting white poinsettias into my arms. “Am not killing… almost killing people out there either. Good for me, huh?”

His cock is half-swollen in his jeans, its outline damp and heavy. He collapses against the wall, then onto the carpet.

Granger and Weasley stopped by his home over the weekend. As they had for the last six years, they begged him to spend Christmas with them. As they had for the last six years, they forgot that he’s no longer good, strong or generous enough to watch parents doting their children, and husbands their wives. Their laughs, their kisses, their love. 

Hasn’t been for the last six years. 

Then Weasley said, “It’s no trouble really, mate. Just an extra space.” 

Not five, as it should have been. 

Potter threw them out. 

He shouldn’t have.

~*~

He didn’t mean to wander the streets afterwards, or seek pleasure from the creatures of the night. He didn’t mean to do it again the night after, then the next. 

But he’s lonely. Horny. He thought of me, but it’s not Christmas yet. 

Christmas. When there’s no he versus I, I remember. When we’re inseparable, like ashes.

He doesn’t know what to do with himself anymore.

So I show him. 

I throw him out.

~*~

The rest of the night I sit by the table. I count the languid crystals dangling from the tree branches, the expired candles sinking from the ceiling. The soldiers are mum and the fairy lights are little more than flickers, while mistletoe crawls down the walls like the parasites that they are. The holiday passes on, as my thoughts wander between conjuring two rabbits and keeping them warm for dinner, and of Potter and a faceless bint fucking just like the pair of them.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	8. The 8th Year

  


####  LA HUITIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (8 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Eight Plates of Salad ~_

  
  


I’ve re-dedicated my life to Scorpius. I’m proud of that.

He loves snow, so I insisted there be snow on the floor. If only I could Disillusion away my footprints. “It’s broken glass, Mr Malfoy,” I’d heard, in the midst of the _Vulnera Sanetur_ ’s spelled on my feet—sweet nonsenses that turned out to be a conspiracy, that allowed them to bind me to the bed with _Incarcerous_ as they de-magicked my home. They blew away the snow in swirls of white like cigarette smoke. They ran down the tree and turned it into a bonfire for the mistletoe and wooden soldiers, exorcised the ghost of fairies with doxy sprays as white wax dripped from the ceiling. All the time they grumbled profanities, my name and Potter’s dotted between them. 

I added my share as they ripped off the wings of the tree top’s angel. Loud, clear, dedicated to all.

I was back to a Grade III, whatever it meant.

~*~

Potter sets his poinsettias at the usual place, in the middle of the dining table. He’s brought greens in addition to sandwiches.

“Sorry about last year,” he says without elaboration.

Not that it matters. “Are there news about the train, Potter?” 

Above his raised wand, white berries like pearls bud from the new mistletoe. But the branches are barren, the leaves yet to grow.

“The school train.” 

The only answer from Potter is the twitch in his hand. 

“James and Albus are on it, with Scorpius, aren’t they?” I remember the little boy with butterbeer, blond and blue-eyed like the angel tree top.

With that, I have Potter’s attention. He turns to me. The sprouting leaves above our heads wither, and in loud cackles they shatter and fall. 

“Yes. And Lily. And Gin.” He gathers the dead leaves and kicks lightly into the pile. His dragonhide boots have faded but for a deep maroon at their tip. “Ginny had gone to visit Neville…Longbottom. Quidditch was off season and she brought Lily along. I had to work.” He looks at me then, his fingers curled and creasing the cuff of his sleeves. “I also thought I’d get the place ready for them. Gin had always done it—bake gingerbreads, get the tree and decorate…”

He chews his lips and with a wild flourish of his wand, the leaf pile spirals upward. Soon a new tree stands where the old one stood. 

More flourishes and my home is a forest, a bland, white clearing on which we stand, the dining table and poinsettias for company. Gone afresh are the ceiling and walls. Gone still is the sun, unable to break through the dark needles, fine and sharp as they are.

I was here before. A small trail that we took, away from the hounds hoarding magnesium fires on their shoulders, a zigzag path of evergreen and snow that opened into a town square where a sculpture stood, of a child and his parents.

The child looked like Potter.

“Your house,” I say, tracing my footsteps past the town square. They were heavy. My face was wet and cold. “There’re pine trees. Statue. Church with courtyard.” My only warmth was in the firm hand holding mine. It pulled me along—neither of us could Apparate without splinching—while the voice of its owner, though cracked as my own, reassured me: _We’ll get there. The service needs us to start …_

Potter bites his lips. “It wasn’t my house, Malfoy.”

“Of course it is.” I search the forest in the depths of my memory. “I took Scorpius there.”

A long pause. “You did.”

I remember.

For I lost Scorpius in the evergreen, then a sea of white, of snow and flowers. I couldn’t find him.

Haven’t found him.

“I left him there.” I grab Potter’s arm. “Your home.”

“You…” He stumbles, compliant for once. 

I look into his eyes. “The white flowers. They were yours, weren’t they?” I question the shock within that stares back at me. “I picked one, that day, for my son. A witch _Incendio_ ed the petals. I’d sullied it, she said, it’s not for me. Or that flower, or the one afar. They’re only for the Potter’s.” My hastening words still fail to capture the sights and sounds flashing and roaring through my head. “So don’t deny it’s your home. Flowers don’t bloom like that in winter unless…”

“Shhhh.” Potter wraps his arms around me. “Shut up, Malfoy.” He nuzzles my hair with his chin. “Breathe.”

I close my eyes as his head dips and his lips brush against mine, clearing them of unfinished thoughts. 

_…unless they’re part of you. The Man Who Lives._

~*~

It is the same sea of flowers, white and vast like snow. And bland as the expression of the servants at the reception who pretended to be blind to Potter as we marched past them.

“Anniversary was last week.” Potter is on all fours, clawing away the molded petals with his fingers. “I’ve never been here on Christmas.” He drags his knees across the jagged ice, then shoves the compost into a paper bag, crumpled and stained with sandwich grease. “Once, actually.” He turns towards the church, from which songs of praise have rung and died. “That was years ago.”

He has already cleared the plaque beside this one. _James Potter and Lily Evans_ , it says, _The Last Enemy to be Destroyed is Death_.

The steam of our breaths dissipates into the sprawling Darkness, of bare branches and evergreens and moonless night. I long for Potter’s cigarettes, if only to see their smoke holding on as one, a fine, single ribbon that dances and ascends into the sky. 

Potter’s fingertips are raw, his jeans have frayed at his knees. Magic, he says, is too convenient.

“Here.” Potter straightens. His hands linger on the stone for an moment longer before they slip away. He watches me wearily.

I read the inscription.

The roster of the Potter clan goes on. Ginevra Molly, James Sirius, Albus Severus, Lily Luna. 

Then, alone in the next line, a name I shouldn’t bear to see. Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy. I trace the letters with my fingers.

“I’m sorry,” Potter whispers. 

The strokes of the name remain deep, delicate, untouched by hatred surpassed only by fear of the surname sheltering it, from life till death. “He’s all I’ve got.”

Potter nods. He casts a cushioning charm, then _Impervius_ , and sits, his arms wrapped around his knees. I mirror him. 

“She.” I point at the first name on the stone. “She would’ve regretted it.” 

“No.” Potter shakes his head.

“For a Malfoy?”

“For anyone.” The light in the green irises has dispersed into shimmers; he coughs and clears his voice. “Gin would have done it for any child in Scorpius’ place.”

From the darkness, an echo resonates. It rang from a crystal vial between us, like the bag of decayed flowers propped against our feet, in a room that was white like my home. _Mrs Potter must have pulled Scorpius on her lap and shielded him when the carriage exploded,_ the echo says, professional and cold like the images on the vial’s glass. _Their bones melted at the same time… their ashes, no magic could separate…._

“She knew Scorpius was mine?”

“Hard to miss.” Potter turns to me with a twitch of his lips, a smile that withers before it blossoms. “Blond. Pointy. Stronger than he’d thought himself.” He draws a breath, looks away again and bows his head, curls up tighter against his knees.

“Al had mentioned Scorpius in his owls before. A few times. He was bothered by the taunts and insults, the blind eyes that turned when it happened. Gin and I didn’t know the bullying had gone physical… until that day.”

The white marble gleams in the dark. 21st December, 2017. The day Ginevra Weasley sheltered a bullied boy in distress—a boy, no longer little, but still blond and blue-eyed, and still so frightened. She sat him by her side, healed the bruises and perhaps, wiped off the tears, her children watching from across the carriage.

With a chime of silver bells, the sweet cart stopped by, steered by a man grinning perpetually, as though he knew no cares of this world.

He didn’t. He couldn’t recall his own name.

“We’d talked about it, encouraged Al to go say hello, let Scorpius know he’s got a friend if he wanted one. But Al was shy, too, or just bad at talking…” He reaches out and rubs his thumb against Albus’s name on the stone. “He’d got that from me. Gin suggested handshakes. I told her about us.” He takes his hand back, blows steam into his palms and rubs, then turns to me and smiles. “She said a flobberworm has more tact than I did.”

With a swipe of his hand, a wreath of white lilies appears against the stone. He sets it straight and stares at it, his smile faint but persistent. 

He loved her. Still does. 

“And I worried, Malfoy.” His voice falls to a whisper when he continues. “You may sneer, but I know what Al’s surname could have done. If Al went to Scorpius, the whole school would either flock to him, or hate him more. If Scorpius was half as observant as his dad, he’d figure it out quickly. If he was half as proud—.”

“He wasn’t.” 

He recognized the hate even as a young child, learned to fear the unfamiliar—strangers’ faces, unknown places—but he never learned pride …

“I meant it a good thing. You brought up a good kid, Malfoy, don’t care how others looked at you.”

I shake my head. Again and again. 

_So much like me, yet so different._

Silence befalls. The snow underneath us melts into water, but there’s no reflection in its darkness, not mine, not his.

I’m lost again, until Potter takes my hand and presses his wand into it. “I don’t know what flowers Scorpius liked.”

Do fathers ask their son of his favorite flora? I closed my fingers against the holly wand. It feels like my own, even if it’s heavier, more resilient. I dust off my magic, focus on it with the only request I can gather: _whatever you think it is._

A lone bulb of Narcissus sprouts from the frost on the ground. 

I should have known. Narcissi used to cover our garden in spring, and I’d go around every evening, calling, looking for Scorpius who’d fallen sleep among them, an open storybook—never the texts from his governess—tucked under his chin. I’d circle my arm around his tiny body and carry him to the manor, him kicking and laughing, and I, threatening for the millionth time that I’d send him to a group tutor. 

But the slender stalk of the Narcissus is never meant to stand alone. It bends and sways against the winter wind, and soon collapses against the lilies. 

As Scorpius must have, before he last closed his eyes… 

Potter whispers a spell. The flower stands, the wind knocks it down and it struggles back up, again and again.

I watch on. Potter refuses to give up.

“It is what it is,” I finally say. 

He turns to me, wiping his eyes as he does so.

“You remember way more than you let on, don’t you?” he asks.

I don’t know what he’s talking about. I tell him so.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	9. The 9th Year

  


####  LA NEUVIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (9 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Nine Dishes for a Chapter of Canons ~_  


  
  


Potter brings in nine dishes this year, each in effect a giant piece of sweet. The scarlet and white striped one is a peppermint candy cane, the pebbled one, studded with Every Flavored Beans. The set of chocolate plates is decorated with rhinestones of different colours, each a match to the cream filling inside. 

These, in addition to the poinsettias, assorted sandwiches and salads, pig trotters and rabbits and Christmas tree and its decorations. 

I’ve outgrown sweets, I say.

He smashes a pebbled plate and pops a handful of beans into his mouth. “Me too.”

He paces around the room, burns out cigarette after cigarette. He's found her, he says, the puppeteer behind the grinning, killing marionette in the train nine years ago. A patrol took the witch in, hours after a gala on Knockturn, for firing _Confringo_ s down Diagon Alley in the wee hours of the morning. 

His only proof was instinct, but wasn’t that enough? Of all the people in the world, MLE should know that Auror Potter’s instinct is never wrong. All he needed was a bit of time to gather evidence.

Still, they let her go. Disturbing the Peace, they said, was no cause for detainment. She’s from afar, a country the Ministry has, since Grindelwald’s time, repeatedly accused of laundering Dark Galleons. An allegation the country has, for just as many decades, vehemently denied. 

This would spell a diplomatic nightmare. More parchments to file, possible overtime work, valuable evenings robbed from their families.

Auror Potter wouldn’t want that, would he?

Plus, they whispered when they thought he couldn't hear them, reopening the case would unleash Potter’s demons again, his obsession over an incident that, filtered through the lens of the nine peaceful, affluent years that’d since gone by, looked little more than a freak accident,—

—a loss that, significant and tragic as it was for those involved, would never be reversible. 

Oh, please don’t get them wrong. They’re sorry, so very sorry…

But they can’t lose him. Can’t lose that madness that shoves his magical powers to unimaginable heights, that fills cell after cell in Azkaban with crooks and thieves, with new enemies and old. Can’t lose that solitude that makes the best volunteer for stakeouts and treacherous missions.

They need Potter exactly the way he has become.

~*~

Potter asks me then, as he extinguishes his last cigarette by the Christmas tree, how many times a person must lie to himself before he believes the lie.

I crush the rubies-studded plate, spill the cherry filling onto my fingers. 

Under the fairy lights, deep in Potter’s gaze and aura of tobacco smoke, I smear it all on my lips.

“Lick me clean.” 

He watches me. I pull him close by the waistband of his jeans, loose around the frame that is emaciated. I fill the space with one hand, and with my other, stuffs a piece of chocolate we’ve so outgrown into his mouth.

The button of his jeans snaps open. He snaps then, grabs my hair and kisses my mouth in full. His tongue, like a serpent’s, skims off the cherry filling and spreads it all over my tongue, the sweet confection losing to the bitterness of his smoke. I let my hand slip on the hard muscles, down with the zipper and its staccato clicks.

“Once,” I offer my answer then, when we pull apart for breath, when cool air takes over where the heated passion was. “I want you.”

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	10. The 10th Year

  


####  LA DIXIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (10 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Ten Full Casks ~_

  
  


Astoria pays a call early, in her high heels, fur coat and wrist bangs. 

And her eyes, a piercing cerulean blue. Scorpius has his mother’s eyes—the hue, the acuity.

I was the only blind child.

Her bangs clang like church bells as she strolls down the corridor. Ladies may stay quiet as thestrals, she once said, but a queen shows her mercy by the sounds she uses as prologue to her entrance. Only then can her cronies afford to flee. Or kneel.

I knelt, years ago, to ask her for her hand. I made her queen so she’d make my heir. Our palace was filled with the male slaves who came to kiss her feet.

And mine. Sometimes together. 

“Ten years,” she says, scanning the room with those eyes that linger an instant longer upon the angel tree top. She’s brought nothing with her, not even poinsettias. “How are you rotting, my dear?”

I should have sent her invitations to my Christmas dinners. I pardon my poor memory. 

“Better than ever. Thanks for asking.” 

She stretches out a hand. A famished fairy hops upon it, ignorant of its fate, its crushed wings a moment later. The diamond ring on her finger dims as the fairy’s fire extinguishes. “Look, you even have Christmas tree and ornaments!” She fakes a merry laugh. “Let me guess who’s visited.” 

My Astoria. Only her smirk can match the chill of mine. 

“One visitor. Name’s Potter. Only he can stomach you.” She snickers, then feigns comprehension with a clap on her forehead. “Oh, how can I forget? He’s as pathetic as you are these days—chasing petty thieves, drunk half the time, his cock shoved in a whore the other half.” She shrugs off her fur coat, showing off the clavicles I adored. “How does it taste, darling?”

I help her remove her coat. “Wouldn’t you like to know.” I throw it on the floor, tread over it and adjust the ornaments on the tree. A soldier breaks into lazy whispers of a song.

_I have no gift to bring. Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum._

_That’s fit to give the King. Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum._

“This charmed life here...how I wish for it.” She raps the wall beside her. “Stick my head in white cement, let everyone else pick up the broken pieces. Let everyone think a loon did it, a loon out there who held a grudge against the oh-so-famous Potter’s." Ridicule permeates her tuts, loud and clear. "When you, Draco Malfoy, know full well your dear father had betrayed _her_ and forced her pyromagic and Effacing curses into exile. When you, Draco Malfoy, know full well _she_ was behind this, that Scorpius was the target and the Potters were collateral damages. And best yet, when you know full well that the Aurors will find out and interrogate you to death, unless you playing barmy, unless you treat everyday like Christmas.”

She circles the tree. Every now and then, her sharp gaze flickers to the angel above. “Oh, I’ve heard. The tear-jerking aftermath of one Draco Malfoy” Her words become airy, lightened, as if, by a sigh. “The day after tomorrow, he'll start talking about the Christmas that’ll take another year minus one day to come. _My son will be back_ , he’ll say. _My Scorpius will hop off the train like he’s alive and the train isn’t a_ Confringo _’ed piece of rubbish on the snow. No, no, no he'll be home with me and he’ll need this, he’ll miss that, and look at me, I’m this tragic, wonderful father who’ll provide for them all, even my petty sanity_.” 

She yanks free a crystal sphere and drops it on the floor. The sphere shatters, silently, the fury of its death usurped by the carpet as does its magic, its colors and blooming patterns.“Not only are you a deceitful coward, Draco you’re so privileged that only you alone can relive that day, everyday, and wallow in your proverbial, poetic grief while everyone, including your boyfriend Potter, has to live on like they’re fine. Like they’ve moved on.”

“Of course you’ve moved on. Mrs Karkaroff.”

“Don’t you dare.” She points at me, her manicure sharp and red. “Don’t you even dare going there. Scorpius was as much my son as he was yours. Sure, I’d kept my distance. I'd honoured our contract and never tried to make Scorpius a Greengrass, which, in case you forget, still owes the Ministry millions in Reparation fees. I marry one useless scum after another because even I, née Greengrass, can’t afford my surname. And you've got what you want, haven't you? I wasn’t even there to play mother for your son when spotlight was on the Malfoys. That honour belonged—and will always belong to Ginevra Potter.” She spits out the name, proficient as I used to when I was young, proud and couldn’t see. “And what honour do I have? I’m in Moscow, fucking another ex-Death Eater because I’m meant to be a fucking queen with fur coats and diamonds, married to a king who’d bring me to balls and functions, to VIPs who may help my family one day…”

She paces. Her words hasten with her steps that bring her towards me. “… not a husband who thinks Christmas is in August.” 

Her voice fails to keep up. It cracks, as she collapses against my shoulder.

I pat her as she cries, comb my fingers through the wild curls that, just like on our wedding day, run all the way down to her waist. Scorpius was born with ringlets in his hair. He’d be like his mother, I thought when I cradled him in my arms for the first time, he’d be strong, brave, a daredevil who'd question and fight his way through this world, his own savior…

_Be like me, but different._

Like all things Astoria and I have shared, the sobs don’t last. She pulls away, gazes at me for one moment, then slaps me hard and walks out of the door, leaving me and her fur coat by the Christmas tree.

I suppose, Christmas dinner invitations aside, I’ve forgotten to tell her that I did love her.

~*~

I send out an owl—the first since my moving to this flat—that Potter is to show up with the tenth gift, even if it _may inflict danger to self and others_. 

He delivers twice the amount: ten bottles of Ogdens’ he stocked for the evening and ten at my request, all in the back pocket of his jeans. 

And a bottle extra in his stagger.

“Happy 10th.” He leans in and kisses me at the threshold of my home. The door is still ajar. “Very happy, merry 10th.” Poinsettias bloom in his one hand, wild and jovial as the first ones he brought. His other hand guides mine for a pat down, to where the shrunken bottles hide.

I pull him inside by his waist. 

He tenses once he passes the threshold. “Someone was here.” 

The door locks behind him with a muted _click_. Flickers of light skim across his eyes, like feathers on water, bright and unsteady. “Who was he … “ he demands, straining to hear the echoes of magic between my walls, whispers from the past only the most powerful, the most destitute can hear. “She?” He decides with a frown. His eyes bore into mine. “What did she want?”

“Guest,” I reply. 

“No.” 

I turn and retreat to the table.

“No,” he insists, louder. 

I study his face, his head still shaking. Two lunatics stare at me: one from the lens of his glasses, one behind them.

He grits his teeth. “Her magic and yours …” He takes a wide stride, attempts to shove the flowers onto the table and misses. White and dirt mingle under his boots when the bottles land next, each on its belly. They clatter as they roll against one another. “… like wand and wizard.” 

“Guest.” I pick up a bottle, tip its neck against my teacup. The liquor flows past the broken seal.

Like a talon, Potter’s fingers shoot out, grasp the bottom of the bottle and upend it. The Firewhiskey rushes out, loudly, choking at its own speed until all that is left is a single drop, round and chasing full circles around the rim. 

It finally meets its downfall to his realization. His whisper. 

“Astoria.” 

My cup has long overflowed. An amber cascade rains from the edge of the table, sweet and crisp like chimes. 

_Hark! How the bells, sweet, silver bells,_ I hum, _All seem to say “Throw cares away”_.

Potter closes his eyes. I remember not the rest of the lyrics, only the tune that plays itself, again and again, like a speeding train, like time…

He hears me.

“Ten years.” He collapses on one knee. The bottle slips from our hands. “Are you still waiting, Malfoy?” His eyes open and level with mine. “For Scorpius?”

Long gone is the snare of hurt around the irises. The green remains, all alone. Perhaps, there’s a corollary to no he versus I around Christmas. There is also no past that is solely my own. Astoria cannot belong here. Or now.

“Scorpius only wants to visit me,” so I reply.

He looks down and away. His shoulders slump and relax.

“She?” he asks, his voice coarse as a croak. “She wants…?”

I take a sip from my plastic mug, still filled to the brim with liquid fire. I reach for him, pull back the dark hair curled against the strong jawline, the streaks of white that have grown from his temples. “Augusts without Christmas,” I say, lifting his chin. “Nothing I offer.” 

More Firewhiskey fill my mouth and I draw his lips against mine.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	11. The 11th Year

  


####  LA ONZIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (11 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Eleven Beautiful, Full-Breasted Maidens ~_

  
  


Potter isn’t an Auror anymore when he visits again. 

_It’s time,_ he says. 

I take him in, the whole him. Exotic suns have tarnished his skin, fresh dew from faraway forests contrasted with the staleness of his cigarettes. The winds of the northern isles have mussed his hair beyond repair, coarsened his voice with its rage. He’s been travelling over the world, he says, by himself and without itinerary. He wakes and decides where he is going to go, who he is going to be. 

Today, he is here as himself. He’s brought the poinsettias, the food, the decorations. But he owes me the eleventh gift. 

A gift he doesn’t have and refuses to buy. A gift he wasn’t born with. 

Maybe he can get me interested in an alternative.

~*~

A Muggle bus roaring by on the street below drowns out the _pop_ of our Side-along Apparation. The bedroom is unlit, save for the vast light boxes glaring in through the curtainless window, screaming mysteries only Muggles can comprehend.

The only fixture in the room is a bed, fit for a house elf and covered by a thin blanket. No pillow. The light outside taints everything red but the Dark. Its shade of blood runs down the walls, floods the cheap fuzz feigning carpet under my shoes, stains the sheets and marks the man who’s just exposed himself, by shoving the blanket onto the floor. 

He looks up at me from the edge of the bed. “I don’t seduce,” he says. 

I want to say _I beg to differ_. 

But I don’t beg.

We watch one another, still like stalemates, until blue flashing lights tear through the night outside. A long wail, loud and gut wrenching, accompanies them. Silence rings in my ears before the next wail follows.

In the swirl of light, the fury of sounds, only Potter’s gaze is constant. 

He falls on his knees as my robe slips off my shoulders.

~*~

I look out the window. The crimson shell of the double decker, striking in daylight, camouflages it from the watch of the red glow above the crossing. The burning cigarette between my fingers gives off just enough fire to chase away the scarlet on my body, on Potter’s hair and face.

He has never done this before. It's been his cock in someone’s mouth, never the other way around. His tongue searches, tracing the vein along my shaft, diving into the slit and the folds of my foreskin, seeking the stretch of skin behind my balls. I’m his exotic land to be conquered over Christmas.

But it is waking, my lust in hibernation for eleven years. “Potter.” I tug on his hair. He lets go with a light _pop_ and I feed him his cigarette. He pulls a drag, deeply, and envelops my cock again in his mouth. The smoke swirls and pulls at my length.

Across the street, a woman stands at the spot where Potter and I kissed years ago, offering hellebores that nobody will buy.

~*~

It burns. 

Potter feeds on the cigarette the last time, plucks it off my hand and stamps it against the glass of the window. His mouth travels upwards, laying kisses on my fingertips, my palm, my wrist…

It stops at the tongue of the serpent. 

His eyes open. He pulls back, wipes his lower lip with the back of his thumb.

A chill breaks into my skin. The window pane cannot keep the winter outside.

 _There’s no he versus I around Christmas_. 

He’s lying. I want him to prove himself. Suddenly. 

Violently.

I spread my fingers, press them hard against his face. He gasps, his hand flies to cup between his own thighs and knead. I drag my arm upwards, shoving his spectacles askew, until the Skull and Serpent push against his mouth. 

He turns away, still on his knees and defiance in his eyes, red without the cigarette’s fire.

I swing my arm against him, knocks him against the window. Blood trickles from his nose, black as ink under the red light. I throw myself on him, knee him at the chest, grab his hair and pull it backwards. His head hits the glass with a thud.

He looks at me, his focus diffused, the words on the signs outside bent into blinding spots on his irises. “We’re even,” he rasps. “You knew about the Mastermind and said nothing. Like the Aurors who'd kept her file from me until I resigned.” He laughs. “What do I know about you, Malfoy? You can be working for the Ministry...”

I slap him again, this time on the left side of his face. When that fails to shut him up, I lock his arms above his head and sink my teeth deep into his lips.

~*~

Potter sinks onto my cock, his thighs spread wide, his head bowed in concentration. The shadow cast by the window skims across his face, a shifting battlefront between the red and the Dark. Only a faint catch of breath gives away his pain. 

Cool against my skin is the glass plug I pulled out from him, slick but too slim. I am his first. He refused to let me further prepare him. 

I clutch his hips, wanting to slow us down, knowing we’re speeding towards the peak of ecstasy, the crux of mutual annihilation. His tightness is mine to break. My lust, for him to consume with heat, the powerful rhythm he’s developed with his thighs.

We’re on a fast train towards an explosive end.

“Harder,” he says, his torso a taut arc as his fingers seek purchase along the edge of the mattress. His eyes are wide open but unseeing, like the roof isn’t there and he’s looking far beyond the night, seeking, questioning the existence of a nirvana that will receive him when he goes. 

I sit straight, coil my arm around him and push him down on his back.

His eyes snap back at mine.

I pull out, grab his jeans and jacket on the carpet and shove them under his hips. I meet his gaze, wavering and impatient, bend him at the waist and push in as deep as I can go. 

His mouth opens, a silent cry as his one arm shoots back, just in time to grab the footboard. The bed sways and creaks.

I raise his legs above my shoulder and wage my assault. Beneath me, Potter stretches and squirms as if under Imperius, while his grip on the footboard never falters, countering my raid, as his deep muscles clench in retaliation…

 _Malfoy,_ he chants. _Draco_. 

He is a weeper. Clear strings like spider silk cling on my fingers as I close my hand around his cock and pull. Pleas and profanities spill from his lips, low as his cries and sweet as his moans. He looks me in the eye, submission written all over his face as—

—I shout, thrust one last time and give him my all.

~*~

The sun is about to rise. 

I lean against the living room window. The signs are still bright, still watching. A lone Muggle in an orange vest works across the street, sweeping away what appear to be scattered petals.

I wonder what happened to the woman selling the Christmas roses. Only the signs can tell, or perhaps the Eros on the fountain, grounded by the snow on his wings.

Potter wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on my shoulder. His bare chest warms my equally bare back. 

I expect roses in the coming years, I tell him. Poinsettias are getting dull.

Potters nips on my earlobe. “We made two papers that year: the _Prophet_ and … something like a Muggle _Quibbler_.” He smiles. I can feel it on my skin. “The next day the Muggle Prime Minister sent the Ministry a nasty message. He wanted me chained away in Wizarding London before I’d break a bridge or two and ruin his party’s election chance again.”

“So you buy a flat here, in a Circus of Muggles.”

He leans forward and tilts his head towards the brightest sign. “It tames my magic… the electricity. I’ve blown a few… torches inside, but they’re replaced overnight. This place is a tourist spot.”

“Most wizards would die for your magic.” 

Potter stills, then pulls away and turns.

I follow his gaze. On the far corner of the living room, off the illuminated path from the glow outside, stands the shadow of a Christmas tree. Fine, glistening dust cover a spot on the floor.

As my sight gets accustomed to the Dark, I make out the crystal spheres blinking on its branches, their patterns dim and erratic like spoilt memories in a Pensive. I see the fairies nursing the embers on their wings, the wooden soldiers sprawled in slumber by their side. I see the frayed scarlet ribbons, the threads entangled with the pine needles they lie upon.

I see them, because they, too, live in my home. Only the treetop is different: three angels stand atop of this one, grinning, holding hands. 

“I decorated it eleven years ago. That afternoon.” Potter gets off the bed and walks over to the tree. He kneels beside the dust and smears it with his fingers. “Dropped a sphere when the Patronus came to tell me the train had exploded. Said I must get to the scene right away… but only as an Auror, as the Dark Magic expert in the force. Families of victims didn’t know yet and I was to leave that identity at home. It never asked me if I could actually do it … I didn’t ask myself. I went with the Patronus and left this mess behind.” 

“Why?” 

He looks at me.

“Why did you bring the tree here?”

He lowers himself onto the floor and wraps his arms around his knees. “I have no use for a living room without… with just me. I haven’t come in here for months.” His eyes survey the space around him, the corner of his lips twitches. “I shrunk my whole living room in Ottery St. Catchpole—this tree happened to be there—and stuffed it inside my pocket for the move. Don’t want to shop for furniture again, you know?”

I look behind me. “You have no furniture, Potter.”

He kneads his eyes.

“Why are you asking me what Hermione asked?” He draws himself tighter and rubs his calves with his hands. The years have sketched crowfeet at the corner of his eyes, feathered strands of white into his hair. But they’ve also left indelible his Auror physique, the many scars on his bare skin. They only make his posture more awkward.

More painful.

“I guess I need to watch it go,” he says, finally.

“The tree?”

He nods.

“The magic shouldn’t have lasted longer than a year. Two years, tops.” He looks up to the fairies, to the angels on the treetop. “I haven’t done anything, not since that afternoon. No maintenance spells, no refueling, no feeding…” His voice falls.

“So you’re waiting.”

He nods.

“Till when?”

He chews his lips. “One more year.” 

Then, as though a thought, broken, falls through his mind and dares to escape, I heard a faint “…when my magic’s gone.”

His magic isn’t going anywhere, I remind him, because there’ll still be Christmas after next year, and the year after that … 

Christmas, when there’s no he versus I, when we are one like ashes, like molten bones. He stays when I stay. He goes when I go. 

It’s a promise he made, and one he will keep. 

For as long as _I_ shall live.

Potter stares at me for a long moment. He nods.

“The tree.” Victorious, I claim his lap and straddle his thighs. “What happens then?”

“Dunno.” He reaches for a crystal sphere and blows off the dust on the glass. “Whatever is easy.”

He places the sphere on his palm and offers it to me. The first ray of the morning sun hits the surface, chips it away to reveal facets, each bouncing off light so all can capture it. 

Then, the magic is gone.

“Just once.” Potter smiles and sprinkles the crystal dust on my skin, on my cock that is hard again. “It doesn’t have to be right.”

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	12. The 12th Year

  


####    
LA DOUZIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL (12 th Year _of_ Christmas)  
_~ Twelve Musketeers with their Swords ~_  


  


Potter isn't here.

####    
  
  
  
  
  
  
LE DOUZIÈME JOUR APRÈS LA DOUZIÈME ANNÉE _de_ NOËL  
(12 th Day after the 12th Year _of_ Christmas: Epiphany)  
  


I’ve strayed from my flat. Three days after Christmas, I was the resident tea brewer in the kitchen; six days, I found the library, papered with sweet wrappers and stocked with second year school texts; nine, I learned the manners of a Lethifold from the portrait of one Janus Thickey. 

On the twelfth day after Christmas, I arrive at the reception. 

All eyes are spellotaped to the PhotoSieve, the pewter dish suspended from the ceiling. Silver smoke swirls and rises as it waits for the image streams from WWN. One of the servants—the wizard who brought me the sliced pheasant— _Accios_ a chair for me.

He smirks. I return the favor.

~*~

The narrator has the same clear voice as the Ministry greeter’s, and as equally aloof.

 

_The Aurors are removing from Azkaban today Earchta O’Luinigh, imprisoned for blasting the London-bound train carrying students from the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry shortly before Christmas of 2017. All aboard were injured, but the incident was best known for killing the wife and children of former Head Auror Harry Potter, Order of Merlin 1st class, Defeater of Voldemort._

 

Thin curls of smoke, of escaped thoughts and memories, rise from the silver halo on the reporter’s head. He takes a stride back, offering the view of the Atrium to the audience of the Sieve, as well as the Aurors forming two files in front of a lift, their wands at the ready. 

“O’Luinigh is now signing release parchments in MLE. In a few minutes, he will take this lift, and these twelve Aurors, the finest of the department—” he shouts above the commotion at the scene, while gesturing at the twelve men in their crimson uniform “—will escort him to his new home, a spell-damage rehabilitation centre prepared just for him at an undisclosed location.”

 

 _Earchta O’Luinigh, who could not recall his own name, purpose or target, was acquitted by the Wizengamot for intentional murder. While terrorism was suspected, no individuals or organizations have been indicted as the puppeteer behind the permanently spell-damaged O’Luinigh. It is now believed that the Potters were simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with O’Luinigh executing his plan in the most convenient first carriage, instantly killing the Potter family seated inside, and the son of a former Death Eater…_. 

 

“The crowd is wild here!” The reporter exclaims, as he dashes to a railing fencing off the spectators of the release. “Everyone. _Everyone_ wants to see the most talked-about criminal in history! Isn’t it so?”

The wizards and witches behind him cheer. “We need a reason to skip work after hols!” someone shouts from the back. “Yes!” The crowd laughs and taps their wands at one another.

“What about the tragedy?” the reporter asks, his arms dramatically spread. “The Potters were our royalty! So.” He draws from his pocket a halo like the one he’s wearing. The audience screams in delight. A young witch snatches it and places it on her head. “What do you have to say to the Potter family… well, please excuse my mistake,” the reporter rolls his eyes “to only Mr Harry Potter himself?”

“Er.” The witch hesitates and pops her gum. The hues of her memory are sharper, the sounds crisper. “I’m, like, really sorry.” She looks around with a grimace and mouths, “I got a Troll in History of Magic,” then brightens up and waves. “Hello Mum!” 

Her friend leans against her and grins. “Speaking of mums, Mr Potter,” she shouts in a spitfire. “Our mums totally miss you in _Witches Weekly_! They want nude shots…” 

“All right. All right!” The reporter snatches the halo away. Arms shoot up high around him to catch his attention. 

But my eyes are drawn to a small child at the corner of the scene. He has just slipped into the crowd, is tiptoeing and stretching his neck as he squeezes his way forward. A few witches pat his head as he passes by.

He is hugging the small pot of poinsettias. 

He makes it to the front. The gold post of the railing swallows his tiny frame in its shabby black robe, but his blond hair screams for me, the freckles on his cheeks blotting away everyone, everything else in my view. His eyes, peering just above the flowers, are a lush, brilliant green.

I shoot up from my chair.

 

_Under the 1998 Clemency Act, which, as a measure to re-populate post-war Wizarding Britain, shortens Azkaban time for all but the most serious offenders, Mr O’Luinigh was given the his maximum possible sentence of twelve years, including his time in custody before trial._

_WWN cannot contact Mr Potter for an interview. According to reliable sources, Mr Potter rescinded his British resident status shortly after leaving his Auror position and has been traveling under his Polyjuice Licence. His close friends have declined to comment. They have been rumoured to also have lost contact with…_

 

“Here’s O’Luinigh!” The reporter shouts, as a crisp chime echoes through the Atrium. Cameras flare and he stumbles, the memory captured by his halo flashing between blinding white blazes and the imprints they leave on his retinas, a haze of undefinable hues against black. 

It recovers to what must be illusions, to a silhouette of a boy drawing a wand from his pot of poinsettias, then a lone emerald Light shooting across the Atrium and hits the man who’s just stepped out of the lift, grinning as though he knows no cares of this world, not even his own name.

Then, twelve wands firing back: flames in red, blue and yellow, sharp but wild, deathly but forgivable. 

Just like fireworks.

### 

  
  
  
  
  
  



	13. La Cadence

  


####  LA CADENCE  
  
  


There’re no more stanzas to _La Foi de la Loi_. I’ve lost track of the years.

They came by, the Aurors, for Potter had last been seen here, on the eleventh year of Christmas. Astoria testified it was her. They asked why she pretended to be someone else. She said a queen had no use registering her wand at the reception. 

They’d never registered Potter’s wand. They hadn’t dared.

In return, I added her name to my Gringott’s Vault.

~*~

I dream, sometimes, of the last illusion I saw on the Sieve that day. A little boy lying in the Atrium, his sprawled limbs growing, his blond hair usurped by black roots as the crowd stampeded around him. Poinsettias scattered in the air; those crushed into liquid on the marble floor were fading to a dull maroon.

Poinsettias are dull. I told Potter that.

I look into the mirror, run the comb through my hair again. It is getting lighter by the day. I wonder what Scorpius has to say to his Father being more blond than him.

Let’s see if he catches the train home to tell me, or he’s too busy playing pranks on his classmates to pack up, just like last year. Or the year before. Or the year before that. 

As I said, I’ve lost track of time. No matter, for I’ll know it’s Christmas when Potter appears, with his hideous glasses, his dirty, ill-fitted clothes, his One Scar. I’ll know it’s Christmas when he and I become one—inseparable, for as many Christmases as I shall live, even if he must take a trip to hell and back.

He promised. 

I pull my hair back and drop my robe on the floor. The luster of the glass plug on the table beckons me. I plant my foot on the chair, work the plug—still slick, still too slim—deep inside. I watch myself gasp, touch and knead where it has become so hard, so sensitive. 

It’ll be a long night. A night of longing.

Someone knocks on the door. The raps are impatient, more perfunctory than functional. My visitor can’t wait and makes it clear that he won’t.

I turn around. 

The door swings open, and all I see is roses…

 

 

 

  
_Fin_  



End file.
